Memories of my village…Date Palms

I bumped into this picture on my laptop screen saver. It was picked up from my picture archives from my visit to my village a couple of years ago. I went down the memory lane which took me to my childhood days. It reminded me of all the summers I have spent in the fields, the various crops we struggled to raise and make our livelihood and a lot of fun I had as well.

The picture you see is of a “Date Palm” tree. The fruits were so tasty that we did not mind getting poked by a thorn or two in the process of cutting them down. When I was a kid, I used to study in a nearby town, away from my small, remote village. The best memories of my childhood are from the summers I spent in my village. It gave me a chance to get back to my roots and experience the life of a farmer.

We used to cut down the bunches (the orange green fruits you see in the picture) and bury them in the sand. This used to speed up the ripening process (due to the severe heat during summer and believe me, the place where I hail from is practically a desert with no sources of water except for the rainfall during the monsoons).

Date Palm

We used to be so secretive about the locations we hide these fruits, because kids from the nearby villages would steal them, if they get to know our secret hide outs. At times we used to hide them in hay stacks, as this would have the same effect and possible keep them away longer from other kids. There used to be raids in the middle of the night (mostly full moon days as we used to be scared to venture out in the dark). Our village, despite its proximity to smaller to mid-sized towns, was so remote that we did not have electricity until 1989. It was a struggle for the adults in the village to get on the same page and persuade the local politicians and lobby for electricity. Anyway, that is a story for another day.

Every day early in the morning, while it is still dark, we used to go harvest the ripened fruits and change the hide out again. Another fact about these trees is that the government used to auction them to contractors who would extract Palm Wine (or Toddy) and sell it in the nearby villages and towns. Even though I was curious, I never tasted that stuff for two reasons. One, I was a good boy then 🙂 and two, one would never drink that stuff if you see the hoards of wild life (insects, flies, bees, small crickets etc.) that flock to these small earthen pots, used to collect the liquid, and die in those pots, not to mention the stinking odor. The staff used to just filter these dead beings out, adulterate with some water, transfer them to plastic cans and ship them to the shops that sell it.

As they say “a picture is worth thousand words”, I guess many of my friends who have similar background and experience of an Indian village life will be able to relate to this quite well. I thought I’d document the story related to this picture, because someday in the future, I might find it amusing to read and ruminate over it or if my kids bump into it, they could get thoroughly embarrassed about the fact that their father lived in a village so remote that it did not have electricity for a long time.

As always, your comments are welcome.